Never the Same Again
by NatNazzy
Summary: It was supposed to be a simple case. You weren't supposed to change. You weren't supposed to question everything you knew; everything you were. You were never meant to second guess the world and your role in it. You were never meant to fall in love and then fall out of it… you were never meant to fall for the devil. But that's exactly what happened… Stockholm be damned.


**This has been four months in the making, I pray you enjoy it. I don't own Criminal Minds, however, anything original such as the plot and original characters belongs to me.**

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"_Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul." _– Andrew Davidson, "The Gargoyle".

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It was supposed to be a simple case.

At the time it was little more than a pebble in your shoe, a stitch in your side, a crick in your neck.

The M.O. was consistent. The motive was clear. Hell, even the profile was complete – which is something you can say in all confidence happened in only a tiny percentage of your cases.

It was supposed to be a simple case.

You were supposed to go in, and then go out. Not even blinking an eye, not even crinkling your brow. You'd deliver the profile, make the arrest and be on the flight back home before sundown.

It was supposed to be a simple case.

You weren't supposed to change. You weren't supposed to question everything you knew; everything you were. You were never meant to second guess the world and your role in it. You were never meant to fall in love and then fall out of it… you were never meant to fall for the devil.

But that's exactly what happened… Stockholm be damned.

It was supposed to be a simple case.

Only, it wasn't.

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Your Mama had always told you to be weary of strangers. She'd painted a picture of a big, broad-shouldered man with nothing but ill intention just waiting to snatch you away the moment you spoke to him. At first you'd believed her, especially when your Papa had gotten shot right in front of you – broad-shouldered men had done that.

"_Never trust strangers." _She had said.

You supposed that's why you flew so easily into the talons of Carl Buford; all wide-eyed and free spirit, having barely stretched your wings. You were too busy being weary of strangers to notice the monster right in front of you, until it was too late. Until he had you… all of you.

That was the day you had decided that your Mama had been wrong. It wasn't the strangers that you had to be weary of – it was the men.

The past you didn't know it at the time, but that decision helped seal your future fate.

You see much like what happened with Carl; you were too busy being weary of men to notice the monster right in front of you; until it was too late. Until she had you… all of you.

The pretty toffee-skinned woman, with coffee-coloured hair and a radiant, deceitful smile.

She had you right where she wanted you, but you were too busy being weary of men to notice.

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Your eyes fight to open, as if they have been lain with lead.

Open. Closed. Open. Closed. You blink away what you think to be the glue that seals them together, but even as you manage to fight the darkness that's threatening to pull you under, you find that you cannot focus the bleary images surrounding you into one.

"Welcome back Agent Morgan." A smiling voice rains down on you like a halo.

It's only when she stands over you that you realise that you're lying on the hard, frigid ground. The cold seeps through your clothes and chills you to the bone – your heart rate spikes up a notch.

Wisps of her hair fly about your vision, and you can only make out the gross features of her face before your eyes close once again, the blackness overwhelming in its intensity.

"Sleep." You hear her say, before your hearing follows your consciousness into the abyss.

The darkness laps at your skin like a wave, and you feel strangely at peace as you allow your body to float into the depths.

You could have sworn you that you felt her press a kiss to your forehead.

But you're too lost in the tide of nothingness to be sure.

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It was a simple case.

Even though you identified with the unsub.

It was a simple case.

The bodies of men were turning up all over Lakewood, Oklahoma. They had been butchered; severely tortured and then killed with a single gunshot to the head.

The autopsies had concluded that they had suffered; the torture was long and diverse and they had been in immense pain. Their vocal cords had been screamed raw, and they had to be identified by their dental records.

It was brutal, it was bloody and it was savage.

One of the worst your team had seen.

It had appeared that no man would be spared. The victims were of all ages, starting twenty years old and moving upwards. They were of all races, all economic backgrounds and all social standings. There appeared to be no connection between them, except for the fact that they were all male.

But remember, it was a simple case.

It was only a matter of time before Garcia had cross-checked the identities of the men via their dental records to look for any connections between them.

It was only a matter of time before the results had come back positive… that all of the men murdered had been child molesters.

It was only a matter of time before the team had realised they were investigating the work of a vigilante.

It was only a matter of time before you had begun to question everything you thought you knew.

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Even catatonic, you can remember the profile like you're reading your own bio:

"White male. Late twenties to early thirties. A victim of sexual abuse. He lives alone, leading a reclusive lifestyle. He has a stable job, is technologically gifted, and prefers to hunt at night… when his victims are intoxicated or unsuspecting. Maybe both."

You remember that there was a lot more to the profile, but the information leaks from your mind like water running through the cracks of a stream.

The smell of perfume wafts through the air, and it reminds you of summer. It is clean and clear and cut in such a defined way that you can't help but think about the feel of the sun on your skin, the grass beneath your feet and the breeze snaking its way up and through your clothes.

You also can't help but think about how wrong the profile was…

How very wrong it was...

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You stopped praying the day Carl Buford first touched you.

You stopped going to church when it happened again.

And again.

And again.

But after hearing countless screams echoing off of the walls of your prison, filled with agony and begging for mercy – not unlike your own – do you think that maybe it's time for you to go back to church again -

You clasp your hands together, you close your eyes, and you begin to pray.

- If you ever make it out of here alive that is.

_Amen._

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The next time you waken, you are able to take in your surroundings.

There's a wheezing draft which slightly ruffles your clothes – the ones which are stained with dirt and smell slightly of sweat and damp and… summer?

It's dark, and it takes your eyes a while to adjust to the light. When they finally manage the transition you can do nothing to halt your groan of despair.

Is it any wonder your back aches the way it does?

You're on the floor of what appears to be a cave. Jagged rocks jut out at odd angles; and if the tell-tale signs of moss and algae festering on its walls don't alert you to the moisture in the air, then the droplets that fall like rain against the asphalt certainly do.

You bow your head for a moment and draw your knees to your chest, thankful that the moisture does not fall upon you and drench your already damp clothes.

You can't help but shiver and wish you had worn more than your typical jeans and V-neck shirt when you had embarked on what you had hoped to be an inconsequential coffee run.

You sigh dismally when you realise that your wrist is shackled to the ground; encircled by a harsh, metal manacle that chafes your skin and reminds you exactly of who is in charge; the meter-long chain connecting your wrist to the peg in the ground doing nothing to strengthen your odds at self-defence – even with the increased range of motion.

You tug on the peg for what you assume to be half an hour before admitting defeat – you know better than to waste your energy like that.

No matter how hard you wish for it… the peg does not budge, and for the first time since your awareness returned to you, do you find yourself genuinely petrified of this unsub and the consequences of what they will do…

The unsub who you hadn't been able to profile correctly at all –

Who had you locked in a cave with absolutely no way out.

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It started out as an unexceptional coffee run.

The team had been bogged down in the small precinct, the coffee comparable to dirty dishwater after multiple washes.

You knew there wasn't really time to waste to preoccupy yourself with getting a caffeine fix, but the entire team had looked dead on their feet, and when the decision was made that coffee would be bought, you had drawn the short straw.

You hadn't minded really, not at first, but looking back on it now you can't help but resent the entire team for nominating you to go – you know that it's unreasonable, but you honestly don't care. In light of everything that's happened, it would be unreasonable for you to feel any other way.

The coffee shop was quant and homey, and you could see the precinct through the window of the tiny building.

That was another thing you would never get over – the fact that you were right in their line of sight, and they never saw a thing.

Not a single damned thing.

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"_He's tech savvy, Sir. But fret not, for I am tech savvy-er!"_

No you weren't.

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You had been just about to walk out the door, six cups of steaming coffee balanced in your hands before you had smacked into her, the carefully balanced treasure splattered your shirt and tumbled to the ground; creating a brown lake that had pooled beneath your feet.

"I am SOsorry!" She had apologised profusely, begging for your forgiveness and enchanting you with those coca-coloured eyes.

You would have had to have been blind or a fool to not have become enraptured…

And Derek Morgan was neither blind nor a fool.

You had assured her that it was okay, reaching over her petite frame for a wad of serviettes that lay on the table beside her.

She had assured you that it wasn't, and insisted on buying you another cup while the rest of your round was brewed – at her expense of course.

You hadn't really had the time, but when a dazzling woman offered to buy you coffee, who were you to say no?

You suppose that's why you didn't give the safety of your drink a second thought as you had run to the bathroom to clean yourself up.

Had you trusted your instincts you would have stayed behind.

You would have seen her open a sachet filled with white powder, before she had dumped its contents into your cup…

Without a single sign of remorse on her disgustingly beautiful face.

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The smell of summer first alerted you to her presence.

"Good, you're up."

You didn't reply.

"Are you just going to ignore me Agent Morgan?"

Silence.

"I thought we hit it off at the coffee shop?" She smirked.

Smug. So damned smug. You couldn't help but look up and glare at her then.

"Such pretty eyes…"

"What do you want with me?" You demand. Harsh. Crisp.

She smiles her dazzling, deceitful smile.

"I don't want anything from you."

"Then why am I here?"

"Satisfaction."

"What?"

She leans into you, close enough for you to hear but far out of your reach.

"Vengeance…" Her harsh whisper reverberates throughout the cave.

You can't help but shiver.

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vig·i·lan·te [_vĭj'ə-lăn'tē] _n. One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one's own hands.

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Confusion – total and utter confusion.

What did she mean by "vengeance"?

You rack your brain and frantically search through its dusty files, trying to recall her face, trying to recall her name, trying to recall anything about her that would cause her to harbour such hatred for you.

You don't know it, but your eyes project every emotion coursing through your head and this causes her smile to grow, and then stretch wider still.

She loves how confused you are, how you believe that you are her target.

She finds it endearing, in an altruistic sort of way, and before you know what's happening she's caressed your cheek and turned on her heel, walking back from where she came.

You go back to rummaging through your metaphorical files, trying to find any semblance of an interaction involving the young woman who now holds you prisoner…

Completely oblivious to the horror that's about to unfold

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Up until a few years ago, Carl Buford was a name that you had resolutely pushed from your mind.

It astounded you, even to this day, how easily you had managed to whisk him from your consciousness. You had packed your bags for college, hopped on the bus, and never looked back – he was an abstract light bulb switch in your brain; one minute he was flipped on, the next minute he was flipped off.

You'd never felt the need to re-flip the switch since you had left for college. Never wanting to blind your eyes or burn your fingertips at the sheer intensity of light that the onslaught of memories would bring, that the confrontation would lead to.

Even when you had returned to Chicago and sent him to jail, you hadn't allowed yourself to flip that damned switch, because then you would have thought about it, and it would have been real.

But as you sit in this cave, imprisoned by darkness, you can feel the light slowly trickling in; you can feel the switch slowly being turned.

And that's when you realise why you hadn't confronted it before.

It wasn't the memories of what had happened to you that threatened to pull you under… it was the knowledge that Carl had gotten away with it and that he had continued to do so for years. It didn't matter that he was rotting in jail, because all it meant was that he had more time to relive the fantasies, to replay the torment over and over in the fetid recesses of his mind.

It didn't matter that 'justice' had been served because Carl had _ruined _lives, and he had _enjoyed _it.

And suddenly flipping the on switch of the metaphorical light bulb isn't enough for you anymore. You want to smash it, to destroy and obliterate it completely – to let the light filter out and let the darkness take over, because then there'll be no plausible way for you to get burned.

That's the moment when you began to see the sense in what your captor was doing…

The only people she's hurting, are the ones who have hurt countless others themselves.

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She comes to you that night.

Not long after you hear the piercing sound of a gunshot slice through the air like a blade. It pains your ears, but at least the screaming has stopped. No matter how much it disgusts you to be, you're thankful that he is dead. At least now you'll live through the rest of the night with your sanity intact.

Or so you hope.

Doing the job that you do, you've learnt to identify the smell of blood from a mile away. It doesn't take much for you to be alerted to her presence… you know as soon as the metallic stench defiles the air.

She comes to a stop right in your line of vision; close but not close enough. Her hair is matted with sweat and blood and god knows what else, and it seems that the macabre combination covers every inch of her body as well.

She stands before you, with a gun in one hand and a glistening, crimson knife in the other. Her clothes are soiled with the blood of her victim and she has a definite glint to her eyes that hints at barely suppressed emotion.

She looks terrifying. But as soon as she smiles, her teeth gleaming in the dark, she becomes a vision – an angel of death and a guardian angel all wrapped in one.

The very notion makes you feel ill.

You are an FBI agent, a profiler, a former cop. Your thoughts aren't supposed to be going in that direction, you aren't supposed to be confused.

But you are. By God you are. Because as you list the many things you know you are and the many things you know you are not – all in a vain attempt at crushing the opinions that have defined you as a member of law enforcement and society – you can't help the tumultuous recurring thought of something you had never branded yourself to be until this very point… a victim.

You are a victim.

As an FBI agent you're supposed to yearn for her arrest, as a profiler you're supposed see through her lies, as a former cop you're supposed to hate the heinous acts she commits… but as a victim, you can't help but agree with it all.

Suddenly you lurch forwards and spill out the contents of your stomach, sick to the very core of your entire being.

Now, you hate her… but nowhere near as much as you hate yourself.

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After your Papa had been killed and lowered into the ground you had thought that it was the end of your very existence; your family had been torn apart and you never thought that happiness would be able to fill you ever again.

You would fight with your Mama every day, argue with her over menial things, over the most inconsequential disagreements, hating that you would make her cry but relishing in the fact that you weren't the only one hurting, the only one to feel pain at the loss.

Your sister's hadn't even garnered enough attention for your rage, you had simply ignored them and left them to their own devices, too caught up in your adolescent turmoil at having lost your one and only role model.

You were alone in a house filled with women and a role that you found impossibly too large to fill.

Once, after a heated row and five smashed dishes later, you had confessed to your Mama that you weren't angry. You were sad. Because now you had a family that was as visibly broken as you were, and you feared that you would never be able to find that sense of closure and comfort that used to permeate your being no matter how hard you searched for it. You were petrified at the thought that you would never again feel content.

She had pulled you to her chest then, you were almost the same height as her, and you had let her stroke your back and hold your head as you cried into her impossibly thin shoulder.

It would only be another year until the slight touch of anyone, even your own Mama, would jumpstart your heart into a frenzy and open the floodgates withholding your adrenaline. Only a year to go before the physical touch of comfort would disgust you, violate your soul and make you feel dirty, fetid and shackled by memories.

She had whispered into your ear that night, promising you that it would only get better and that, someday, you would grow up to look exactly like your Papa. You would be as handsome as he was and as noble and loyal in whatever career path you chose, in whichever direction you chose to branch out in life.

She had even mentioned a beautiful girl who was out there waiting for you, and that even though she didn't know it yet, you were going to make her the happiest woman in the world. You would love her and cherish her, and you would have the white-picket fence and the two point five children and everything would be okay, just you wait and see.

Your mother hadn't thought to mention Carl Buford in your life's plan, or the effects that the turmoil that you faced under his hands would have on the rest of your life.

You wondered what your mother would think of your captor.

You wondered what she would think of you, and the fact that, maybe, you were starting to fall for her.

You were destined to be broken.

That's how you knew that you would be leaving this place in pieces – assuming you were ever going to leave at all.

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It surprised you when she came back after a small while.

Her clothing was immaculate and not a single strand of her lovely dark hair was out of place. She really did look beautiful – small and calm and so deceivingly _innocent. _Was it any wonder you had gotten the entire profile wrong? Was it any wonder she had evaded the law for as long as it had chased her?

She was a girl on a mission, and no person and no law was going to stand in her way.

You had to admire that about her.

"What's your name?" You ask, surprised at your own forwardness.

Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline and her forehead crinkles in response to the action. Clearly, she's surprised too.

Silence blankets the two of you like snow on a cold winter's night, and you begin to feel the hairs along your spine raise in both anticipation and fear.

There's something so intimidating about her, something so malicious yet as equally enrapturing that you don't even think to second-guess the next words to leave your mouth.

"You know my name. It's only fair that I know yours."

And you say it with an air of such nonchalance that you almost make yourself believe that you're simply gathering evidence for your profile.

"Sharneé." Comes the whispered reply, and you're honestly surprised that she acquiesced so easily.

Whether it is her real name or not, you aren't sure, but for some reason you don't doubt that she's telling the truth.

"Sharneé…" You repeat; testing the name as it rolls off of your tongue, as smoothly as the richest velvet.

You convince yourself that you only asked her to develop rapport; to gain her trust and get inside her mind.

You need to profile her to get out of here, after all.

It has absolutely nothing to do with your genuine, if not morbid, curiosity; or the insatiable need to learn as much about her as you possibly can.

Even something as inconsequential as her name when really, you should be more concerned with her motive for taking you in the first place, as well as the barely concealed knife that she always keeps stowed away in the band of her jeans behind her back.

"Get some rest Agent Morgan." She smirks. "You're going to need it."

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Slowly, you open your eyes, and the reality of your situation pounds you into consciousness like the weight of a dozen trampling hooves.

Groaning, you arch your back and try to relieve some of the tension compressing your spine, your muscles aching in protest.

The cave gives no indication as to what time it is, its interior looks the same no matter how much time passes, whether it is day or night… but for some reason, you know that you have been there for one day.

A whole day. It feels so much longer than that.

The fact that you know you have been there for an entire day is comparable to the way that you know that you will make it out of here alive. Had Sharneé wanted to harm you, she most certainly would have done so by know.

It's comparable to how you know that, despite what she's doing, she has a certain inherent goodness; a speck of humanity that had eluded you upon your initial meeting.

You aren't entirely sure how you know all of this, but you know.

_You know._

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The slightly rusted metal door slams open, effectively jarring you out of your reverie.

"Here." She snaps, throwing a slight bag filled with a water canister and some bread to fall onto your lap. "Eat that and then I'll take you through to get cleaned up."

You don't know that you have a slight trail of blood down the side of your head, caused by one of the many sharp and jutting rocks as you had slept, but you know your clothes are a revolting sight to behold. Your breath is rank from when you had been ill the previous day and you have never needed to use the bathroom more desperately in your entire life.

You want to quip about the meagre and tasteless meal, but your emaciated stomach and parched throat prompt you to do otherwise, and you begin to eat and drink at a speed fast enough to create a sonic boom.

The instinctual side of your being focuses on the task at hand, relishing in the coolness of the water as it slides down your throat and the weight of the bread as it lines your stomach. The professional side, however, watches her closely, the profiler in you determined to decipher her mannerisms and infer her intent.

She's extremely agitated, that much is clear. She paces back and forth creating a trench in the sand that litters the ground, shooting you the occasional glare as she grows impatient. She runs the fingers of her left hand through her hair repeatedly, whilst her right clutches the gun at her side.

_Clever girl. _You muse.

But it's evident that something has not gone according to plan. Something has caused her obvious distress, and before you can even process or chastise yourself for the words that are about to leave your mouth, you're already speaking them in your most derisive tone.

"Trouble in paradise babydoll?"

She snaps to attention then, cold eyes gleaming and searing with fury.

You swallow thickly as she marches up to you, not even having the chance to hold your breath before the butt of her gun connects with the side of your head.

Grunting in pain, she grabs your chin and forces you to look into her eyes. Her face is mere inches from your own. It's the perfect opportunity, but she has that gun pressed so firmly to your head that you really have no other choice but to stay still.

"Do not patronise me!" She hisses.

Her tone is laced with such tenacious rage that you know better than to respond, opting to stare back at her instead; tongue-tied and muted by fear.

Carefully, she raises herself back up to her full height, eyes never leaving yours for a single instant.

"Get up."

You comply.

With the gun remaining pointed at your head she releases you from your shackle.

"Walk." She demands, prodding you in your back with her gun, ensuring that you're painfully aware of its ominous presence right behind you.

She guides you through the metal door and for some reason, you don't feel like you're embarking on a routine bathroom trip.

You feel like she's leading you to your execution.

You feel like a dead man walking.

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After you had confronted Carl Buford and had ensured that he had gotten arrested, you and the rest of the team had returned to Quantico and resumed your lives as if no one was any the wiser.

Everyone had tried to act like nothing had happened, but something had happened, and you withdrew into yourself under the painful knowledge that they all knew.

Guess some secrets can't be kept after all.

It was about two weeks after your return that Reid first said something.

He had been shooting your timid glances for a while, trying to catch your eye, trying to confront you yet avoid you all at the same time.

"Are you okay?" He had asked out of the blue, cowering behind the rim of his coffee mug as if it were to offer him protection from your wrath.

Though his body language screamed fear, his eyes were determined, and you couldn't help but be thankful that finally, _finally, _someone knew and they were attempting to do something about it.

"I will be." You had replied at the time, certain that the statement spoke the truth now that you felt that you had acquired a confidante.

But then Tobias Hankel had happened, and suddenly whatever was going on with you wasn't important anymore.

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Despite the fact that you are imprisoned in an overwhelmingly clichéd rocky cave, you can't deny that being able to brush your teeth and wear a new set of clothing has made you feel infinitely better about your predicament.

You hate being a hostage, but you know that your team will not rest until they find you. That's the one thing that you have that Sharneé doesn't – this knowledge.

She doesn't bank on the BAU. She doesn't bank on your family.

Maybe that's because she never really had a family of her own… especially after the 'tragedy' that had occurred.

You think that she would have given the BAU a little more credit; they are a part of the FBI after all.

But she doesn't understand the notion of family.

The concept is foreign to her.

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It's not even an hour after your 'bathroom break' that you're once again greeted by the harsh slam of metal on rocks that precedes Sharneé's entrance.

She has a lovely smile on her face and excitement gleams in her eyes; all of it framed by a slight haze of malicious intent – her aura breath-taking and completely frightening.

She hums a surprisingly cheery tune as she waltzes towards you, brandishing the gun in a manner that's not at all threatening, but that reminds you of its presence and that she only needs to pull the trigger for you to fade to darkness for eternity.

It has the desired effect.

You don't move an inch as she unbinds your shackle, only standing when she gestures for you to do so.

She places her hand in yours, gun never leaving your side. She squeezes until you hold hers back.

"I think you're going to like this."

And you began to walk.

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At first you aren't entirely sure of what is happening. You struggle to find your way, even though you're being led – disorientated and your eyes straining in the dark. It's only the harsh prods of the gun against your back that keep you going, refraining you from spinning around and telling her _exactly _what you think of the situation.

You know better. You haven't spent years of combat training and field work to screw it up like that.

Leading you through endless hallways, you don't even try to memorise the way. Vaguely, chastise yourself. This is your life, and your survival depends on your profiling the environment around you, but really you can't bring yourself to care. The situation is beyond hopeless – and try as they might, the team won't even know where to begin to look.

You quiver in both fear and anticipation at what awaits you behind the final door.

Entering the tiny room, you hear the door slam shut behind you, swearing that you've left a part of yourself on the other side.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

And you can't help but gape at her incredulously, fear swimming in your eyes.

She smiles at you before waltzing around your body and towards the table in the centre of the room, a severely beaten man lying on its surface, groaning into the air, eyes unseeing in the dim light.

She looks up at you, as if expecting you to either say something, or if not that, then to do something instead. You aren't entirely sure which, but seeing that you aren't about to do either she merely looks away in disappointment before picking up a surgical knife in her small, delicate hands.

"W-what are you doing?" You ask quickly, taking a step forwards as you do so.

She points the knife at you threateningly and you know better than to move again.

"I really hope you enjoy the show." She says finally, before plunging the scalpel into the man's bicep.

Immediately he begins to scream and writhe on the table against his restraints, pure agony engulfing his face, but she simply continues on, carving a bloodied trail into his arm with cold, impassive eyes.

The man's screams reverberate off of the walls of the tiny room and you find yourself quickly becoming overwhelmed with the sheer volume of it all.

But you don't look away.

Though the man's screams are loud and unrelenting, his cries occasionally broken by pleading and begs for mercy, you hear her voice break through the wall of terror; with the ease of a knife sliding through butter you hear her voice; with unequivocal clarity, over the man's own.

"I am doing this for you, after all."

She picks up a different tool and starts the process all over again.

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"You know," Reid had said, "given the nature of the crimes as well as the clear evidence of rage and even the consistency regarding how these crimes are committed; it's not entirely inconceivable that our unsub has been planning this for a while now – months, maybe even years."

"What are you trying to say Reid?" You had asked.

"I'm saying that there's no evidence of evolution, or even devolution for that matter. The unsub's remained eerily consistent; which leads me to believe that perhaps these aren't hate crimes against child molesters at all."

Hotch's eyebrows had furrowed in confusion. "If not hate crimes then what?"

"Revenge." Reid had stated simply. "He's doing it for revenge. He's punishing men like these as a replacement for the one who hurt him, but I think he genuinely believes he's doing the world a service by protecting the innocent and enforcing justice for the children who have already had their lives ruined."

"It makes sense." Rossi had agreed. "It fits the profile of a vigilante, and the majority of serial killers have some form of personal vendetta against their victims that prompts them to kill in the first place."

"It's almost certainly a man." Reid had agreed.

"Anyone ever tell you, you might just be perfect kid?" You had joked, winking at the other agent as you were once again blown away by his deductive skills and abilities of inference.

But no one's perfect.

Guess even the great Doctor Reid can be wrong.

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You aren't entirely sure how long it lasts. It could be minutes or it could ve days. Time has no meaning in this place, and eventually the man's screams begin to morph into one horrific drone of pain. You can't remember when the horror had started, and there seems to be no end in sight.

At least, it had felt that way until he stops screaming altogether – when Sherneé finally puts the bullet through his brain.

You stand in your corner after the shot has fired, staring at the macabre sight before you and you don't think you've ever been more relieved to hear the vicious quake of a gunshot in your entire life.

Guns are something to be feared. They've saved your life and the lives of your colleagues on countless occasions… but they've also taken lives. They're dangerous and hostile; but right now, Sharneé's gun is probably the most beautiful thing you've ever seen; ever heard. It had the power to end that man's suffering, and for the briefest moment, for the slightest flicker of a second, you wish that it would extend its power to you as well.

But you shake your head and rid your mind of the thought as quickly as it comes. No use in thinking like that… not right now at least.

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Emotional turmoil was something you had always been familiar with.

From the very moment you were born you were ostracised – a mixed race child of a white mother and a black father. Well… the very idea of it; let's just say that back alley Chicago was _not _in your favour.

You had felt it then, in the form of disgusted stares and whispered rumours, something neither of your parents could protect you from no matter how much they had told you that it wasn't important.

You had felt it after your father had died. When you had hurt so much you could hardly stomach it; when the looks had turned pitying for the briefest moment before they had promptly turned back to disgust once again – when the world had seen the tyrant you became, back when you used to make your mother cry.

You had felt it when Carl Buford had stepped in to become your 'mentor'. That 'crippling' pain you had felt previously hadn't seemed as crippling as you had previously thought, because with the introduction of Buford it had suddenly doubled in its intensity, crushing you from the inside out and leaving you barren… emotionless, even though your mother had started smiling again and the looks had turned to pride in response to all your football achievements.

You feel it now, as you walk with Sharneé, side-by-side, hand-in-hand, the devil and the saviour, both embarking on an identical walk of shame.

The onslaught of grotesquely twisted thoughts rotating about your skull is not what bothers you; it means that you're still human enough to try and rationalise… to try and make sense of what you have just been forced to bear witness to.

No, what bothers you is the fact that you are emotionless, the exact opposite of what you have been your entire life.

It bothers you because it can only mean one of two things:

Either you are giving up; or you are beginning to see the righteousness in what Sharneé is doing…

And that scares you more than Carl Buford ever could.

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The walk back to your stony prison feels far longer than your departing journey, and it shocks you to realise that you draw comfort from Sharneé's hand as it holds your own – even though you aren't holding hers back.

Dutifully, and with what looks to be like resignation, she shackles you back to the peg in the ground, though she doesn't make a move to relocate herself beyond the circumference of your range of motion. That's the first time you think that, maybe, she's drawing comfort from you too; even if she still has the gun clutched firmly in her hand.

You turn to face her and the two of you look to be in the onset of a showdown, but it is not so. In fact you look down at her, your eyes far above where her head can reach and realise that she's staring at the ground, silent tears streaming down her face… and you're at an absolute loss of what to do.

Is she crying for the man she killed, or is she crying at the fact that she killed him? Maybe it's as simple as the notion that she's crying for herself because, somehow along the way, she ended up dying too.

The sight of a crying woman has shredded your composure from as early in your life as you can possibly remember. It's why you were filled with such self-loathing in your youth… being responsible for the tears of not only your mother but your sisters as well.

It's why you have no clue of what to do as far as this situation with Sharneé is concerned.

Running on instinct, you want nothing more than to wrap your arms around her and envelop her small frame in your own broad protection. But you can't do that, and you're enlightened to know that it's a remnant of your old self that's preventing you from doing so.

You lay a hand on her shoulder instead, that remnant of yourself completely obliterated when she throws her arms around your waist and cries, unashamedly into your chest, tears soaking the fabric of your shirt.

She begins to talk manically, whispering and muttering, and you try so hard to listen but you're distracted by the gun pressing into your back and the unyielding knowledge that, yes, her finger is on the trigger.

You hear a flurry of "can't do this anymore" and "don't know what to do", and you know she's diverted your stoicism and gone straight to your composure instead.

Faintly, you hear her say "please make it stop", but then she's spewing out so many other sentences after that first one that the words are easily lost in a tsunami of others.

You're not sure why you do it, but you raise your arm to wrap it around both of her shoulders in an awkward half hug, showing your conflict in not wanting to commit entirely to the act.

She burrows further into you and you don't move away, wanting to offer her comfort yet trying to pull yourself back into the frame of mind that you were in when you first entered this God forsaken place.

You're not sure why you do it, but you suppose it's because you know what it feels like to be both soiled and damaged, and have absolutely no one to turn to.

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"You know," Rossi had said, "I have to agree with Reid's theory that these murders are a result of revenge."

Upon seeing the questioning looks of the team around him, Rossi had continued. "Look at the timing of the murders. Whilst it's true that there's no _exact _pattern, there's a space of at least one week or more between each victim's disappearance."

"All that tells us is that he's more than likely an opportunistic killer."

"Wrong, Morgan." Rossi had looked at you then, a slight twinkle in his eye, the same one he always got when he felt he knew something that no one else did. "What it tells us, is that he is meticulous in his planning, timing the abductions perfectly to fit with what he has planned for them at a later stage. It also explains why he keeps them for so long; it enables him to savour the torture in order to exact his justice and achieve his revenge."

The entire room had been silent, finding no fault in Rossi's argument, slightly awed at the mangled logic that lay behind it, no one realising at the time the significance of his input.

You had once called Penelope Garcia your "God given solace."

It wouldn't be long until you hoisted David Rossi up onto that pedestal.

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After she had composed herself, Sharneé had turned on her heel and left through the steel door with not another word spoken. There had been no emotion in her eyes, and you wondered how someone so tiny could be so volatile, so unpredictable and so unbelievably _scary. _Her breakdown had you confused; despite the nature of your job and the calibre of your teammates, none of you had been able to discern any type of mental illness – aside from the obvious of course.

Was she sick? Truly ill?

You didn't have time to dwell on the fact as she returned to you after a short while –

And somehow you knew that round two was about to begin.

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The first time you watched her torture a man you didn't think it could get much worse than that. Now, you wonder how many more times you'll find yourself being wrong while you're on this case – while you're held captive.

You can stomach it when she tortures a second man. Hell, you're surprised to find that you can even stomach it when she tortures a third; but when she begins on a fourth and then a fifth, you start to wonder if perhaps you'll leave this room without your sanity still intact after all… as mentally depraved and unstable as she appears to be.

Briefly, you register that you should be happy for this fact. This is the second time she has tortured and killed someone in a single day… she never performs that quickly, and now the number of men she's killing in one day is escalating. You know that this acceleration doesn't fit the profile, which means that she's devolving, which means that the team has a greater chance of finding you.

Anguish easily drowns out any happiness you have.

Man after man she tortures them, ensuring that each is met with a bullet in their final moments, and you know that sometime after the sixth man is taken care of, you're covered in blood splatter and plenty of other things you'd rather not think of.

You watch as she tortures them, the seventh and the eighth, and eventually the humanity in you begs her to stop, you're not able to witness such pain and torment being inflicted on a fellow human being.

But finally, around the time she starts on numbers nine and ten, the victim in you listens to their sordid confessions, of how they raped and killed innocent children yet managed to defy the justice system. You're not able to tear your eyes away from their blood as it leaks from their bodies, glad that finally, somehow, they're being made to pay for their misdeeds. They're being made to repent for their sins.

Now you watch numbers eleven and twelve, and you think that, soon, you're going to lose count. You aren't sure which one is the dominant side of you anymore: the humanity or the victim, but then you hear number twelve crack.

He talks about how he seduced a young boy into trusting him, a young boy who recently lost his mother and joined the baseball team as a means to stay out of trouble while he coped with her death; the very baseball team that number twelve himself coached. The story sounds like a replica of your own, and he screams about how much he enjoyed it, and that he's not sorry because those were the best years of his life, the best moments of his life, and if he could go back he would gladly do it again because he got off, he hadn't even spent more than a month in jail. It was _worth _it.

Sharneé delivers a particularly hard blow when she hears that, and you can't help your satisfaction as it brims to the surface when you hear the harsh cracking of his skull as it caves in.

No, you aren't sure which one is the dominant side of you anymore. But as your eyes slowly lift to reach Sharneé's own, across the table that supports the now bludgeoned man, your frown is smoothed away from your brow and a small smile stretches across your face.

You realise that in the battle of humanity versus victim… the victim side of you is winning.

It's tired of being forced to lay dormant for so long.

Now, it wants to come out to play.

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"Garcia." Hotch had begun. "What was the name of the first recorded victim?"

The entire team had looked to Hotch, equally confused expressions on all of their faces, including yours. Hotch had merely held his hand out in a signal of patience whilst Garcia's fingers were heard tapping away on the other end of the speakerphone.

"A 'Mister Henry Walters' Sir."

"I want you to do some digging for me Garcia, find me everything there is to know about Henry Walters."

"Up and at 'em Sir, Garcia out."

"What are you thinking Hotch?" You had asked warily.

"The first kill is always the most significant; it can tell us a lot about the Unsub, as well as his motive. I have a feeling that this first victim is important to the Unsub in some way, he may even be the man who assaulted him in his past that led him to go down the road he's on now."

That had made perfect sense, you would have gone straight for Carl had you had the same mind-set as this Unsub.

"I could do with some coffee." You had said finally. "Any takers?"

When no one had stood or made to volunteer you had sighed heavily. "I guess we'll draw straws then."

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"When I was nineteen," she begins, "my brother killed himself."

You look at her cautiously, lips firmly pressed into a tight line, unsure of where this is going to go and shivering in the dark confines of the cave. The two of you have just returned, and you feel absolutely filthy, covered in blood that is not your own, blood that belongs to at least twenty men or more. You had lost count eventually.

"He was the only piece of family I had in a family that was nothing like the perfect definition of what families are meant to be. It was just him and I, the two of us against the world until the pain finally got to be too much for him."

She looks at you, wanting to see if you're following. She smiles as she reads your body language; leaning slightly towards her in anticipation as your need to know overwhelms you.

"You see, when my brother was twelve years old, he was sexually assaulted for the very first time."

Your breathing becomes laboured now, because this story's plot has barely developed and yet it's resonating with you far more than you care to admit.

"He didn't tell anyone for three years – the entire time it was happening." Her voice becomes thick, eyes glistening at the remembrance of her most painful memories. "In those three years I saw him change from someone beautiful and innocent to someone horrifying and unrecognisable." The tears spill from where they're imprisoned behind her eyes, yet she continues, stringing her sentences together in such a hurry that it appears she's afraid she'll lose her nerve if she stops for too long.

"Who was he?" You can't help but ask.

"It doesn't matter." She snaps quickly, and immediately you know it's someone that everyone, even she, trusted – why else would her voice be so thickly tinged with guilt? You shiver at the notion that it appears that you and her brother could have been the same person, such are your childhood experiences with the men who were meant to protect you.

"He was convicted and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment." She said. "Only after I figured it out and told." Sharneé sighs deeply. "My brother never forgave me for that. He said that it was his secret to tell and that I had no right to spill it for him; and in that moment I knew, if I hadn't lost him before, I had certainly lost him then."

"You did the right thing." You say fiercely, and then knit your eyebrows together quickly as you wonder why in the hell you're trying to comfort her in the first place.

"Did I?" She muses, and you know the question's rhetorical so you refrain from answering.

She's unashamed of the tears that stream down her face, and the logic surrounding what she's doing calls to you with such clarity that for the briefest moment, you even forget you own name.

"Anyway," she continues, "he lived out his last two years in misery, withdrawing from everyone and everything until he became this invisible spectre locked away in his room."

"What about your parents?" You ask.

"Useless."

Loneliness is an emotion that you know all too well, potent in your childhood and even now in your adult life, it's something that continually masks your happiness like a shadow, a proverbial cloud that blocks the light yet never quite gets profound enough to rain.

Sharneé's in the midst of a lightning storm, her loneliness so powerful, so overwhelming that it's masked out all reason and all hope. You feel your own eyes prickle with the sensation of unshed tears and hastily wipe them away, your frustration growing as you become more and more confused by both your actions and your emotions with each passing minute.

Her voice startles you out of your inner turmoil. "I always knew he spent all that time up there planning. I just didn't know what. I always thought that he was just trying to find the best way to exact his revenge."

Her smile at the thought dropped as quickly as it came. "But I was wrong, he had spent all that time in there planning the best time and the best way to end his life… the only outcome being his one hundred percent success rate."

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"I don't care how tired your officers are! One of my agent's is missing and we've already wasted far too much time!"

"I understand that Agent Hotchner, and I sympathise, really I do; but you're overstepping your bounds here. You have to understand that my men are working on barely any hour's sleep and it's been this way since this case fell into our laps."

"Look over there." Hotch hisses icily, pointing at Reid through the police chief's office window. The young man is standing in front of a whiteboard, trying his best to narrow down the geographical profile. "Do you think he's slept since we arrived here?"

"And there." The incensed man continues, pointing to Prentiss who is pacing back and forth in front of the evidence board. "She hasn't slept either."

"Agent Hotchner –"

"And her!" The furious man gestures to where J.J. is frantically making phone calls from one of the officer's desks. "She hasn't moved from that desk since the moment we arrived, so I daresay she's had much sleep, _especially _since our agent was taken. Now I understand that you're understaffed, and I understand that your men are tired; but a man's life is on the line, an agent's life, a _good _agent at that, and I know for a fact that your men wouldn't be kicking up so much dust if it was one of their own that was taken; so how about you use that God given 'Police Chief' status of yours to motivate the unmotivated? Or would that be 'overstepping your bounds'?!"

The police chief gawks at Hotch as if the man has just spouted out the meaning of life itself. He composes himself after a small while and sighs before nodding his head resignedly. "I'll see what I can do."

"See that you do." Hotch says flatly, before turning on his heel and marching out of the office.

"Well that went better than expected." Rossi deadpans, catching up to Hotch as he stomps through the precinct.

"I'm not giving up on Morgan, and I'll be damned if I let any of these officers slack off just because they don't know him."

Rossi nods his head in agreement before leading Hotch back to the rest of the team, back to the evidence board and, hopefully, back to where the answer of your location lies hidden amongst the piles of unveiled evidence.

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"That was four years ago." She states calmly, her breath ghosting the air, filling the void. Exactly how long have the two of you been sitting in silence?

"I'm sorry." You murmur lamely, because really, what else is there to say in a situation like this?

"Do you want to know what the real sucker punch is?" She continues on, ears deaf to your hollow apology.

She actually lifts her head so that her glittering, glazed eyes bore into your own. You shift uncomfortably but nod your head responsively, slightly, almost unperceptively. You won't admit that you want to know, _need _to know.

"The man who abused him was released six months ago."

Your breath halts in your chest, mouth opening in a silent gasp and your eyes widen.

She smiles viciously and speaks with a voice dripping with sickly sarcasm. "That's right. Henry Walters, the man who could do no wrong, released six years into his twenty year sentence 'on account of his good behaviour'."

_Ah._

And there you have it – a trigger.

Derek Morgan has found the trigger.

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The more you think about it, the angrier you get – at the sheer, the sheer… _injustice _of it all. A young boy's life was ruined! A young boy's life was _taken! _And it's all you can do not to cry, it's all you can do not to burst into tears; because you were that young boy, your life had been ruined.

You put up the strong front; you wore the mask – so well in fact that the team hadn't even suspected a thing until you had gotten arrested.

But no matter how strong you thought you were, no matter how deep you thought you had buried it; it doesn't change the fact that you were that young boy, and your life had been ruined – your life had been taken, and six months ago, that bastard had been allowed to walk free.

Sharneé couldn't be more righteous in what she was doing.

The justice system had failed her.

She was taking matters into her own hands.

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"Morning Garcia."

"It's bad."

Hotch frowns. "How bad is 'bad' Garcia?"

"Bad as in really bad Sir."

The Unit Chief sighs. "Tell me."

"Well it would seem that our Doctor Reid isn't the only genius on the team, for you, good Sir, hit the nail on the head."

Hotch could have sworn his heart plummeted straight into his stomach. "Henry Walters?"

"Henry Walters."

"What do we need to know?"

The blonde-haired technical analyst sighs tiredly before she answers. "He was a convicted child molester who was sentenced to twenty years in prison six years ago for the rape of a twelve year old boy over a three year period, named Abrian Alecto."

"Wait a minute… this man abused that boy until he was fifteen years old?"

"Correct Sir."

"But if he was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment," J.J. pipes up, "How is it that he was killed and his body was found out of the confines of the prison?"

"Well that's just it, my fellow female comrade; he was released six months ago on account of his good behaviour."

"He was released six years into his twenty year sentence?" Reid asks incredulously.

"Sounds like a bona-fide trigger to me if there ever was one." Prentiss says knowingly.

"Abrian Alecto'sour Unsub." Rossi says.

"You will have all you need to know about Abrian Alectowithin the hour. It's time we brought our chocolate thunder home."

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You know you haven't slept a wink and yet, somehow, you also know that it is the morning – the morning of day three.

You know that what you're feeling isn't right; but you also know that you don't care.

You know that when Sharneé next comes to you, you're going to tell her everything.

You know that you're on her side now, even though you know that it's wrong.

And when you feel a sharp clenching in your gut, a sort of deep-rooted anxiety and apprehension that you have come to recognise over the years; you know that today, everything will come to a head.

Somehow you know that today is when it all ends.

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It's like the two of you came to some sort of agreement without even saying a word. A silent pact that you know needs to be fulfilled as soon as Sharneé enters your stony prison and sits down directly across from you, the gun resting on her knee and her face a mask of composure – waiting for you to speak.

You don't look at her when you begin your tale, you don't need to, to know that you have her full attention.

You start from the beginning… and you carry your story all the way through to its end, until you reach the point in your life that you are at now.

You tell her about your father, and how he was killed before your very eyes when you were only a child. You tell her about the pain you went through after that, about how the loss felt so physical, so… so _palpable _that you swore it was going to kill you from the inside out; and you tell her about how lost you were and how you couldn't even look your own mother in the eyes.

Then, you tell her about Carl. You don't mention his name… for some reason find it impossible to get the words past your lips, but you tell her what happened, and it's the first time since you started speaking that your voice becomes raw with emotion, scratchy under the remembrance. You tell her about how ecstatic you were that you had found a father figure, that you had found guidance when you were young and impressionable, that you had found love. But then you tell her about the pain, about the cabin, about the first time he… and about how you couldn't even look your own mother in the eyes – only this time it was for a different reason.

You tell her how long it lasted. You tell her how you never told. You tell her how your team found out, and that it's never quite been the same since.

She sits quietly, attentively, throughout your entire monologue. Never once offering you comfort, not even when you have to cut yourself off to pinch the bridge of your nose and gain your composure. She never once shows emotion, but somehow… you know she understands, even though it never physically happened to her, and you suppose that's why you open up to her in the first place – her of all people; when you've never told anyone any of this ever before.

It happened to her brother; she understands your rage and you realise that that's all you've ever wanted; for someone to _understand _and not tell you that you have to let it go and just _move on_, because it's not as simple as that, it's not as easy as that. It's a part of you, and it always will be.

Sharneé understands that.

When she sees that you are well and truly done talking she stands and unshackles you from the peg in the ground.

"Come." She says, her eyes boring intensely down into your own before she offers you her hand.

You take it.

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"I have bad news my lovlies."

"Like we need more bad news from you right now." Emily remarks rudely.

"Don't shoot the messenger my sweet."

"What have you found Garcia?" Hotch asks, anxious to unveil anything that could lead the team to your location.

"Abrian Alecto isn't your Unsub."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he's dead Sir."

"_What?"_

"I'm afraid you heard me correctly. You see, once Mister Walters was convicted and sentenced to prison, Abrian pretty much fell straight off the map. All I can find on here is that he still attended school, though his grades dropped dismally and there are no records of him ever attending therapy or counselling of any sort. Four years ago, two years after Walters was put in jail, he committed suicide and shot himself, poor thing."

"But what about the family?" Rossi asks. "Surely the parents would have lashed out? Spoken to the press? Gone to the police station? Done _something. _You haven't even mentioned them Garcia."

"That's because they're not worth mentioning." She snaps, and the team exchange looks at each other over where Hotch is holding out the phone in the middle of them all.

"I'm sorry." She says finally. "It's just that, they didn't do their job! They didn't protect their children!"

"What are you talking about Garcia?" J.J. questions.

"I don't… I don't know! There's hardly anything about them on here! Except for the fact that they're obviously deadbeat; they've been living off of unemployment cheques pretty much from the day they got married, both of them having been fired for violent and unruly behaviour towards both customers and staff in the retail stores that they worked at respectively. Hmm interesting…"

"What?"

"It says in a court document here that it was actually Abrian's sister, Sharneé, who approached the police about her brother's abuse after their parents claimed that both children were 'lying' and 'acting out in a desperate attempt to seek attention'. In summary Sir, the parents clearly didn't give a damn about either one of their children."

Both Hotch and Rossi share a knowing look over the upheld cellphone… they don't have to look to know that she's the woman that they saw in the surveillance footage, the woman that they had deemed unimportant – too small to have subdued you.

"Garcia." Hotch says finally. "Find out everything there is to know about Sharneé Alecto."

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This is the third time she's taken you to witness a man's impending doom, and you wonder how it is that you became so readily desensitised in such a short amount of time.

The man's screams don't bother you.

The sight of his blood doesn't bother you.

But his confession… now that – that bothers you.

Hearing what he did to two little boys and three little girls; that bothers you.

Knowing that they were in excruciating pain and that their families will never get them back; that bothers you.

Knowing that he got away with it… that bothers you too.

The man is silent now, barely conscious such is the sheer amount of the loss of his blood. Sharneé sidles beside you, close enough that the skin of your arms is touching.

You could do it. You could grab the gun, you could overpower her; you could bring this nightmare to an end.

But you don't.

Sharneé raises the gun. She aims and she fires.

It doesn't bother you.

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"How many of you have ever heard of antisocial personality disorder?" Garcia's voice resonates through the speaker of the phone in the Unit Chief's hand."

"Antisocial personality disorder, or sociopathic personality, is a mental health condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting or violating the rights of others. The behaviour is often criminal." Reid pipes up.

"Why did I even ask?" Garcia sighs.

"What's the significance Garcia?"

The significance, my fearless leader, is that Sharneé Alecto was diagnosed with it when she was nineteen years old, right after her brother committed suicide."

"Guys that makes sense!" Reid exclaims. "A person with antisocial personality disorder is able to act witty and charming and be good at flattery as well as manipulating other people's emotions! It wouldn't be hard for someone with this disorder, especially a woman, to both charm and manipulate men into going somewhere with her! We saw from the CCTV footage how easily her façade took Morgan's guard down, and he's a trained profiler!"

"How did she get diagnosed Garcia?" Hotch asks seriously.

"It's not very specific Sir… but… according to the psychiatric report, she was referred to a psychiatrist after a state provided psychologist became concerned with certain issues that were discussed in therapy and certain behaviours that were displayed as well. On further evaluation, it was surmised that she had conductive disorder as a child, which is a prerequisite for an antisocial personality disorder diagnosis."

"Why wasn't she diagnosed as a child?" Prentiss asks irritably.

"Umm…" Garcia deadpans. "Where you not present during the last phone call when I threw my toys about how deadbeat the parents were?"

"Well what about her treatment once she was diagnosed?"

"Actually," Reid interrupts, "antisocial personality disorder is extremely difficult to treat. People with this condition rarely seek treatment on their own and generally only start therapy when required to by a court."

"One-eighty-seven strikes again!" Garcia yells triumphantly. "The psychiatrist tried a cocktail of drugs on her in association with the cognitive behavioural therapy she was receiving from her psychologist, but alas, she drops off the grid a year after her treatment began."

"But how is that possible? Surely either one or both of the professionals would have sought her out?" Rossi points out.

"They would have Sir, except for the fact that she skedaddled out of state. From what little I can see on here, she pretty much hopped around from place to place until she settled in Lakewood six months ago; right when Henry Walters was released from prison and relocated to live with his family there. "

"Wait a minute." Hotch says exasperatedly. "She's not a native resident of Lakewood?"

"No Sir… she was born and raised in Chicago."

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It must be the afternoon… whether it's early afternoon or late afternoon, you can't be sure, but it's the afternoon nonetheless.

Wait…

What day is it? How long have you been here?

You feel your eyebrows as they knit together in confusion; feel the frown lines as they appear on your forehead. When had thinking become some hard? You collapse yourself onto the dirt of your prison, your legs suddenly unstable as your head swims with dizziness and your ears buzz with tinnitus.

Your heart is raging, your blood is surging, and you aren't sure if you're having a panic attack or if you're imagining it? Or maybe it's not even a panic attack but a heart attack instead? Maybe you're dying?

It's difficult to hear over the noise in your head; difficult to see through the spots in your vision, but you swear that you hear Sharneé kneeling in front of you.

You try to see, try to think. Where's the gun? Does she still have it? What's she doing? Is this it? Is she –

You're cut off mid-ramble by a pair of lips colliding with your own, surprising force behind the action, the soft curve dominated by power.

Her tongue wrestles with your own, and you aren't really sure of what's happening but you know it's wrong, you know aren't supposed to enjoy this, to _want _this.

Sharneé leans back and there's a pause… a tiny breathing space which you don't use for breathing at all, and then she leans back in, unimaginably soft lips caressing your own; and though it doesn't pass your mind in the moment, it' something that you will think of every day for the rest of your life… the fact that you make no move to reciprocate it; but you make no move to put a stop to it either.

It's only as she stands to leave, a few moments later with a small smile playing on the edges of her lips, that you realise that you hadn't tried to escape – you were unbound, unshackled and unpegged, and the thought hadn't even crossed your mind once the entire time you had been unbound…

Not even once.

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"You know," Prentiss begins. "It's really bothering me that we still haven't figured out the significance of the dump site. I mean… Sharneé's our Unsub, but she's only lived in Lakewood for six months. That's hardly enough time to account for an attachment to the part of the river where all of the bodies have been found."

"Maybe Walters had an attachment to that part of the river and she dumped him there to mock him? Then carried on dumping the bodies there because it was convenient?" J.J. questions.

"That could be a possibility…"

"But look at the size and stature of this girl." Rossi says. "That river's in a very steep decline and surrounded by vast shrubbery. It's practically impossible for a physically fit male to move a dead body through that much vegetation and over such tough terrain, for a girl like her? Never?"

"She may not have had to specifically travers that spot to leave the bodies there though." Reid looks at Rossi pensively before he continues. "I've been researching this river for a while now and it has an interesting current pattern. She could have dumped the bodies from somewhere upriver and they would have wound up in the same place."

"Well that narrows it down." Prentiss says despondently.

"Still though," Rossi continues, "I find it very hard to believe that this woman would be physically able to dump the bodies at all…"

It was at that moment that the police chief marched in, shoulders slumped and face drawn into such a tight mask of despondency that your stomach would have dropped at the mere sight of it.

"Agent Hotchner, we've found more bodies."

"_Bodies?" _Hotch asks, eyes going wide. "I'm assuming in the same place?"

The police chief nods his head slowly.

"How many?"

"Twenty-five."

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It's strange now that she's left.

You should feel rattled by what had happened. Hell, you should be _disgusted _by what had happened, how could you have let it get that far? How could you not have done anything to secure your freedom?

It's strange now that she's left because, you should be thinking about all these things, you should be admonishing yourself for your behaviour, reprimanding your own displaced stupidity… but you're not.

Instead, you find yourself thinking that you wish you could hear your name pass through her lips; in the moment when they part from yours.

"_Derek…"_

You smile at the thought.

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The relief that every member of the team feels when they find out that none of the twenty-five bodies is yours is overwhelming – short-lived – but overwhelming nonetheless.

It's dark by the time they all return to the precinct; the night sky morbid despite the stars twinkling in its depths, and it's all your team can do not to scream, because such beauty should not be found at a time like this.

"I just don't get it!" Rossi spits out, incensed. "How is it possible for her to dump all of these bodies?! Twenty-five in a forty-eight hour period? That's got to be some kind of record!"

"It's an escalation." Hotch says in mock-calm. "Most likely due to Morgan's presence."

"But impossible! For one woman to physically be able to dump all of those bodies in one spot? And to not be seen?! From what the coroners have told us thus far they've all been submerged in the water for the same amount of time? She would need a massive vehicle for that kind of transportation… it would be entirely implausible to assume that she wouldn't have been noticed."

"What if she didn't need transportation?" Reid whispers into the air.

"_Excuse me?" _Rossi demands irately.

Reid simply holds up his hand and fishes his phone out of his pocket. "I'm going on a hunch here." He says, before he dials a number and puts the phone on speaker.

"Please tell me you're calling with something substantial?" Garcia's tear-soaked voice chokes out through the phone. The loss of you is really starting to affect her, and the fact that one of the bodies could have been yours… well; she'll never recover if the team doesn't find you and get you out alive.

"I hope so." Reid says firmly. "Garcia, is there any chance that there's a damn or hydroplant somewhere up the river from where the bodies have been found?

"Let me see… hmmm… YES! Yes there is! There's a hydroplant not far from where the bodies were found, only…"

"What?"

"It was shut down five months ago. It was deemed 'environmentally noxious' and 'structurally unsound'."

"Henry Walters was killed five months ago…" Prentiss says, her stomach suddenly twisting into a very tight knot. "If it's abandoned it's the perfect place to torture and kill in absolute privacy, and all she would have to do is throw the bodies over the edge and let the river do the rest…"

Reid breathes in deeply before he speaks again. "Did Sharneé Alecto work there before it was closed down?"

A flurry of typing can be heard over the line before everything goes silent. "She worked there for a month before it was shut down."

"She must have tracked Walters' movements and followed him to Lakewood when he relocated here." Hotch says. "Stalking him and biding her time for an entire month; watching and waiting, and when the plant was shut down and abandoned it was simply too good of an opportunity to ignore."

"Get the Police Chief in here immediately!" Rossi bellows. "We know where Morgan is!"

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"Sharneé." You begin to question her finally, your voice scratchy from misuse, perhaps even from fear. "What is this?"

She smiles at you sadly, as if she's disappointed in you for not figuring it out so very long ago.

She moves to stand a little more directly in front of you, and it's the first time she's moved since she returned to you after… well, after something that should never have happened… happened.

"I told you." She says suddenly. "I'm doing this for you." And when you furrow your brows at her she only smiles before she whispers; jogging your memory. "Vengeance." Hissing out the last sound, garnering shivers to rake up and down your spine.

She laughs at your reaction and smiles more broadly. "I can assure you, Agent Morgan, you will never be the same again."

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"Inform your men to approach with caution." Hotch demands of the police chief over his cell phone, his voice slightly muffled by the sound of sirens on both ends of the line. He's in one of your team's SUV's; the sirens blaring and the lights flashing as they race to your rescue. "She will be extremely hostile, and she won't hesitate to inflict damage upon anyone who gets in her way."

Rossi looks at him in concern from the driver's side of the car, questioning Hotch slightly with his eyes as the Unit Chief grows silent to listen to the narcissistic man on the other end of the line. Finally Hotch interrupts him, his voice as irate as Rossi has ever heard it.

"No. You _and _your men will wait for my command. It's our agent who's in there, and I will not have him endangered by a trigger happy policeman desperate to make it home for his nine o'clock dinner. There are complications to this case that you cannot even begin to imagine –"

He's interrupted once again and his face turns a ridiculous shade of crimson in response to whatever the man is saying on the other end of the line. "What makes me _qualified _to lead in this case, is that both my team and I are experts on human behaviour and there are complications associated to a person with antisocial personality disorder that puts your men, my team, and Agent Morgan in extreme danger."

Again the police chief begins to argue with Hotch over the phone, though the Unit Chief doesn't put much importance behind what the man is saying. He knows that he will win this argument – he always does. He knows that he'll get through to the police chief sooner or later; the threat of your life assures him of that.

He can't focus on what the self-centred man is saying though, because the direness of your situation is weighing on him heavily, and all he has going through his mind is Reid's sombre voice from the afternoon on repeat.

"_The complications regarding antisocial personality disorder are extreme. Often they include imprisonment, drug abuse, violence, and…"_

"_Yes Reid?"_

"… _and suicide."_

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"Tell me about Carl." She says suddenly, and your eyebrows shoot up in surprise. You'd told her all about Carl, this morning in fact. So why on earth was she bringing it up again? Why was she bringing _him _up again. Carl Buford, he –

How did she know his name?

You hadn't told her his name.

She smiles, a sweet, venomous smile when she sees that realisation dawn on your face.

"How do you know his name?" You all but demand, and she simply laughs her melodious laugh like she always does and looks at you with nothing but adoration in her eyes.

"You really don't remember me, do you?"

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You hadn't told your team exactly why you had needed to take time off. They had probably guessed the reason anyway, knowing that it was something relating to Carl Buford – personal or otherwise; but they had all had the good grace not to ask about it, they weren't a team of profilers for nothing, after all.

The truth is that you had needed to take time off work so that you were able return to Chicago; to testify in Buford's trial.

You hadn't wanted to take the stand, you'd fought it tooth and nail in fact, but they had needed you as a witness. They had needed you to speak as a… victim, because the more victims who testified the more time he got in jail, and so you had done it. If not for James then for Damian, for the young boy who had lost his life trying to do what was right.

Dressed in your best suit, you had gone to the courthouse alone and unaccompanied, you hadn't wanted your family to hear what you had to say. The courthouse was busy and bustling with activity, every room filled to the brim as various trials had taken place, but finding the room that Buford's case had been assigned to had been easy enough, and you hadn't had to wait long before you had been forced to take the stand.

You had lain your hand on the bible, had raised your other hand in the air, and solemnly sworn to tell the truth… the whole truth and nothing but the truth; all the while having averted your eyes from the corner of the courtroom where you knew that Buford had sat.

You had taken your seat, slowly, trying your best to delay the inevitable, but eventually, you were made to talk.

Inhaling a sharp breath, you had raised your eyes, briefly noting the entrance of a young girl into the courtroom before she had seated herself right at the back, not even sparing her a second thought before you had begun to tell your tale, mortified as your voice had grown thicker and your eyes had watered harder with each word, with each memory that had spurned up long buried emotions – all the while unaware of the pretty toffee-skinned girl, with coffee-coloured hair and a radiant, if not deceitful smile, who had stared at you the entire time you spoke with barely concealed awe.

Your story had struck home with her in ways that you couldn't even have begun to have contemplated, and so you had continued on, never having glanced at her, never having seen her – unaware that she had been completely enamoured by you, and that you would rue that day for the rest of your days to come…

Because it was the day that had changed everything.

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"Assuming she is dumping the bodies over the edge, then she would have to have them situated and imprisoned near the surface of the hydroplant." Reid begins his explanation to the group of officers surrounding him. They're all standing on the cusp of the hydroplant, trying to formulate a plan of action in as little amount of time as possible.

"The S.W.A.T. team is scoping the area as we speak and should have it surrounded within the next ten minutes." Hotch informs them, coming to stand beside Reid. "Snipers are getting into position."

Reid nods at him firmly before he continues. "The mountain on the far side is both an advantage and a disadvantage to us. The advantage is that it leaves her with only one way out, which we have blockaded, however, the disadvantage is that Agent Morgan is more than likely being held there to prevent any form of escape on his part. This means that we need to be tactical in our approach and split every available resource wisely. We don't know how many other men she's keeping there, aside from Agent Morgan himself."

Reid gestures to the police chief to organise his officers and the man immediately starts barking out orders. Once everyone has been informed of the strategy and the tactic that is in place the police chief makes as if to dismiss his officers for duty."

"One last thing." Reid interrupts him. "I've studied the blueprints of this hydroplant and it would appear that the acoustics of the building are not designed in our favour. Part of the reason why it was deemed 'structurally unsound' is that because of the nature of its architecture, sound within and surrounding the building is amplified, thus, creating large amounts of noise exposure."

"What are you saying Doctor Reid?" The police chief demands arrogantly. "That she can hear us?"

Reid turns to him; disdain clear in his sharp, hazel eyes.

"Oh undoubtedly. She knows we're here."

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"That's right." She says knowingly, almost snidely. "I was there the day you testified, I heard it all."

"Then why…" You swallow. "Why didn't you say anything when I was telling you? You said absolutely nothing at all!" And you're yelling now because you're so angry, you're angry because it hurt, it hurt to relive that.

"That's why I didn't say anything. You needed to tell someone, you needed to let it out – and not emotionlessly and detached like the way you did in court, leaving out parts and only commenting on others. You needed to come to terms with it. All of it."

"And how the _hell _do you know what it is that I needed to do?"

She kneels before you, resting back on her haunches, appraising you with serious eyes. "I know because it's something my brother never did, and maybe if he had, he wouldn't be lying in a mound of dirt in the ground."

You don't respond to her, focusing your energy instead on fighting the burn that's building in your eyes.

"I've never been one to believe in fate." She muses idly. "But you have to admit, us both being there, in that courthouse, at the same time for the same thing; you confronting your monster while my brother confronted his just across the hall, well… who could deny us this? This moment?"

You look up at her, a couple of droplets falling from your eyes. "Your brother was there that day?"

She smiles fondly at the memory. "Yes, he was testifying too."

"But that was in Chicago?"

She leans forward and strokes your cheek gently. "I'm from Chicago."

The two of you hear sirens in the distance.

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Surrounded by S.W.A.T. members and police officers your team makes quick work of the hydroplant; scoping the rooms and exclaiming "clear!" at every turn.

They come across many rooms – perfect for the sheer number of men Sharneé abducted. The plant is filled with gurney's and tools, all used to lift and move heavy machinery. That would have made it easy for her to transport the men about all over the plant.

One of the officers stumbles across copious amounts of chloroform, and it's easy to fill in the blanks as to how she kept them subdued. It would have been simple to chloroform them once they had gotten into one of her various stolen cars and kept them that way.

She's a smart girl, and she knows what she's doing.

Your team finds no more men in the hydroplant. They find no more victims, and the only sound that can be heard is the sound of their hurried footsteps.

The plant is eerily quiet, and they only hope that it's not a testament to your state of being as well.

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"But… but the men!" You eventually choke out, overcome by how much you truly didn't know.

"You don't have to thank me." She says airily, getting to her feet. "I know you're thankful."

You can both hear footsteps approaching, desperate and insistent; but you can't feel relieved because you _need _answers.

"Th-thankful? What the hell for?!"

"Sharneé Alecto." Booms Hotch's voice from the other side of the steel door. "This is Agent Aaron Hotchner with the F.B.I. Put down your weapon, open the door and come out with your hands up!"

Sharneé barely spares a glance at the door before looking back at you again.

"What am I thankful for?" You demand again.

"For releasing you."

"Sharneé Alecto, this is your last warning. Put down your weapon, open the door and come out with your hands up!"

"Releasing me from what?"

She kneels before you once again and kisses you sweetly.

"Your past." She whispers.

She stands up as soon as she hears the lock being pried from the door; towering over you, she looks down and gives you one last smile – a genuine smile, completely void of any maliciousness and mal-intent.

The door gives a harsh groan and she knows that her time is up. She looks to the door and then back down at you, that omnipotent smile still on her face.

She lifts the gun to her temple and the world goes quiet.

"You're welcome." She says, and the shot rings out against all corners of the hellish cave.

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They had entered the door right after it had happened, the slamming of its opening muffled out by the shot of Sherneé's gun.

You had looked up to see Hotch race into your prison, gun raised and stance ready, but he had lowered both his gun and his defences when he had seen it, when he had seen her… her body, lying next to yours.

You had looked up to him and could barely make out his horrified expression due to the blood that had run down your face and seeped into your eyes.

You had no idea of the sight you had looked – every inch of your body covered in her blood.

Hotch's mouth had begun to move and you had known that he was shouting orders, but your eyes had closed, and the red had turned to black.

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What was supposed to be a heartfelt reunion had turned into a vicious confrontation – aimed at not only Hotch but at the entire team as well – all within a matter of minutes.

They had all arrived and exchanged pleasantries, each member giving you a hug and a reassuring smile, touching on mundane topics of conversation, such as the state of the hospital food, until the bomb had finally been dropped – until Hotch had finally asked you what had happened.

"Nothing." Had been your curt reply, and six pairs of eyebrows had furrowed in both worry and annoyance.

You don't know why you didn't want to tell them, you don't know why you couldn't just say the words; but you had a strange sense of loyalty towards Sharneé, one that had grown from the moment you had been taken – blooming without your knowledge.

You couldn't betray her to your team, even if they were family, you just couldn't.

You had done the only thing that you could think to do in a situation like that, and you had blamed them for your silence because it had taken them so damned long to find you; and before too long insults had been thrown and voices had been raised, all of it to no avail as your walls simply grew higher and stronger and your heart rate had only begun to beat faster and faster.

Hotch had tried to reason with you, to rationalise that what you were feeling was perfectly understandable but that they had done the best that they could in the time that they had; that you were only feeling that way because you had been trapped with her for so long – because maybe you had a case of Stockholm Syndrome that you needed to consider.

You had seen red and every single one of his arguments had fallen flat, every single one of his reasoning's had been met with deaf ears, because the simple fact of the matter was that you were tired of listening to Hotch. You were tired of listening to his hurried reasoning and whispered ramblings… his explanations as to what took them so long – three whole days to be precise – just weren't enough. They were petty and unforgiveable, and the usually moral and stoic man had simply been feeding you excuses, and it had _pissed _you off.

It hadn't mattered to you either way. It didn't matter to you how they had put the pieces together or even why it had taken them so long. It had made no difference, because the fact of the matter is that they were too late.

They weren't able to save you from Sharneé… and they weren't able to save Sharneé from herself.

A nurse had eventually marched into your room, throwing disgusted glares at the members of your team before ushering them out of the door, allowing Hotch only the briefest moment to stop and turn at the door.

"You understand Morgan, that if you don't talk to us I will have no other choice but to book you off for a full psychological evaluation?"

"Fine by me."

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The fury at what had happened didn't stop there, it hadn't abated throughout the night and drifted from your consciousness when the sun arouse the next morning. No, it had only intensified – because what they had said to you, what they had tried to show you, had only served to prove their point that you were delusional… that you were a victim a Stockholm.

But you _weren't._

And it was infuriating you because that's what they just _couldn't _understand!

It may have only being three days in reality; hell, they could shout it into your face until their lips turned blue. It's what served as the buffer that they needed to make their argument valid – that you were traumatised and suffering and displaying symptoms of PTSD – that you were a victim.

But they weren't there! How could they possibly ever understand?!

They made Sharneé out to be a delusional unsub; a sick young girl with a tainted vision and a desire for bloodlust. A sick young girl who had made _you _her victim; but that could not be further from the truth.

Sharneé had been a beautiful young woman, one with a yearning for justice and the insatiable need to do what was right. She hadn't been sick or delusional, merely broken; and you hadn't been her victim… you had been her protégé, and she had only ever wanted to set you free; to mend the wings that had been traitorously clipped in your youth.

And that it was why you were still so mad, because they just couldn't understand.

It may only have been three days, but for you, it had been an entire lifetime.

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They visited you separately after that.

Garcia held your hand and stroked your arm, and Reid sat across from you, reading easily in a comfortable silence that the two of you established many years ago. Prentiss informed you of the plot of her latest Kurt Vonnegut novel, while J.J. told you all about Henry and the antics that the little boy got up to.

Hotch returned too, and you had a far more civil, far more sophisticated conversation, before he got up and left after a short while, Rossi taking his place.

The two of you spoke about so many things, about everything you missed while you had been away; and it blew your mind to learn about everything that had gone on while you had been held captive for three days. The older man tried to question you on what you knew of how Sharneé had dumped the bodies, but he gave up as soon as he saw your mouth clench into a tight line and the light disappear from your eyes as they hardened defensively.

Eventually, Rossi stood, ready to leave and made his way towards the door, he stopped before he reached it, thinking on something before he turned to appraise you once again. You raised your eyes to meet his and jutted your chin out defiantly.

"You know what's funny Morgan is that she was able to dispose of so many bodies so quickly while she held you captive. Even with only having to throw them over the edge, a woman of her size and frame? It would take her an entire day. A man of your size and stature on the other hand, well, it would take only a matter of hours."

And he smirked at you knowingly when you pursed your lips and turned to exit the room, leaving you to your thoughts, to your memories… and to your nightmares.

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It's night time now, and you're relieved that you'll be discharged tomorrow. The lights are out in your room and the blinds are drawn, the darkness is eerie in the sterile environment.

You lay in your hospital bed, propped up by a few pillows and look out the window. Droplets cascade down the glass and you can see by the billow of the trees that there's a storm raging outside, lightening shooting from the sky and illuminating your room momentarily before disappearing into the night once again.

As usual, your thoughts turn to Sharneé and how you're never going to be able to comprehend exactly what it is that happened to you, and exactly what it is that she hoped to achieve by it. But when you replay her final, dazzling smile in your mind, the one she gifted to you in her final moment, you draw comfort in the fact that you know that she died peacefully, confident that her goal had been reached.

You're not entirely sure how you're going to explain this one to your Mama, and you dread the conversation and the inevitable confrontation that it'll lead to. J.J. told you that they were flying Sharneé's body to Chicago, as per her family's request, so that she could buried beside her brother. It amuses you that her parents only care now… now that both of their children are dead. It doesn't matter to you either way though; you know that now when you make your annual visit down to Chicago you'll have another grave to add to the list of those that you always visit.

"_Derek…"_

The rain whispers into your ear, and you inhale a shaky breath as your heart rate spikes up a notch. How you wish you could have heard her say your name, even if it was just one time...

As you lie in your hospital bed, the darkness engulfing you like a blanket, you think back on all that has happened to you. You try to make sense of your roaring emotions, and the deep confusion that results because of them, but it's to no avail. Memories of your ordeal flit across your eyes like stills from a movie, unseeing in the darkness, and the memories morph into one, long sequence of events that feel like they could have occurred years and years ago. You don't know it right now, but the nostalgia will never come to pass, because despite what people keep saying – you will never forget what happened to you. You will never be able to move on.

"_I can assure you, Agent Morgan, you will never be the same again."_

You feel a lone tear trail down your already salted cheek, and you know that out of everything Sharneé had ever told you, those were the truest words to have ever left her mouth.

You would recover. You would go back to work, you would do your job and you would pretend that everything was okay, because that's what people expected of you, of Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan: fearless leader, stoic team member, empathetic human being, and impossibly hard to crack.

You would carry on and live the way that you had always lived your life.

But you would never, ever be the same again.

* * *

**Thank you.**


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